Lita Ford Exploring Lita's Desert Sanctuary | Life in Six Strings

Lita Ford

Exploring Lita's Desert Sanctuary | Life in Six Strings

Join Kylie Olsson as she heads to the Phoenix desert to meet the Queen of Noise herself, Lita Ford. After years on the road and a challenging chapter in her life, the trailblazing Runaways guitarist shows Kylie her sanctuary, her iconic BC Rich guitars, and the spiritual healing of Arizona. Watch the full episode on Life in Six Strings.

Episode Overview

In this deeply personal episode of Life in Six Strings, host Kylie Olsson travels to Phoenix, Arizona, to visit the spiritual home of hard rock icon Lita Ford. Shredding her way into rock history at just 16 years old as the lead guitarist of The Runaways, Lita has spent decades commanding the stage.

Now, after health struggles and 10 continuous years on the road without a permanent home, Lita opens up about finding peace, health, and privacy in the desert. From mountain biking through cactus-lined trails to undergoing a spiritual cleansing with her "white witch," Lita proves that even the baddest rockstars need a place to recharge.

Explore Lita's Desert Life

This episode highlights the stark contrast between Lita's intense, leather-clad stage persona and her grounded, healthy lifestyle in Arizona:

• ■ The Need for Privacy: Lita explains why she left Los Angeles for Phoenix. After dealing with fans looking through her windows and lingering in her yard in LA, the desert offered her a sanctuary where she could drop the "superhero" image and just be herself.
• ■ Desert Fitness: Kylie and Lita hit the dirt on mountain bikes, speeding through the Superstition Mountains. Lita emphasizes how eating organic, riding bikes, and getting out in the sun literally saved her life after years of touring took a toll on her health.
• ■ A Spiritual Cleansing: The duo bikes to an old mining ghost town to meet Colleen, Lita's "white witch." They perform a sacred sage-burning ceremony to cleanse impurities and banish "demons," replacing the darkness with the sweet smell of sweetgrass.

Episode Highlights

• The "Cherry Bomb" Explorer Lita lets Kylie hold the actual 1976 black Explorer guitar used to write and perform The Runaways' massive hit, "Cherry Bomb." She explains she chose the angular, aggressive shapes of Hamer and BC Rich guitars because she wanted a "weapon" in her hands that set her apart from Strat and Les Paul players.
• The Insane "Close My Eyes Forever" Double Neck Lita shows off the monstrous, incredibly heavy BC Rich double-neck guitar used for "Close My Eyes Forever." Built by Neil Moser, the 12-string neck uniquely features six strings running in one direction and the other six running the opposite way on the same neck.
• The Fishing Trip Guitar In one of the best guitar origin stories ever, Lita recounts making her father stop the car in Oregon during a fishing trip to strap a lightning-struck tree trunk to their roof. They drove it straight to BC Rich, who turned the beautiful curly/burly/fire maple into a custom Gunslinger guitar.
• The Japanese Home Plate Pick Lita reveals the secret behind her custom "home plate" shaped picks. Given an original Japanese tortoise shell pick by Ritchie Blackmore in the '70s, Lita used to hide it in her cheek like chewing tobacco during three-month tours to ensure she didn't lose it. It became essential to The Runaways' signature palm-muted, "rusty spoon scraping out of a grave" sound.